The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 18:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Bow and arrow curve[edit]

Article was PROD by User:Melchoir with "Apparent hoax, no attestation found", template was removed by "64.175.42.228" with no reason, I re-instated it (probable vandal), then removed by User:Closedmouth who wanted it taken to AfD. It's outside my field, so we need some more input. Ronhjones ^(Talk) 18:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. That Euler was interested in the graphs of such equations is attested in multiple sources—see, for instance, here (§3.2). I'm not finding any sources for this term, however, either in English or in German (Bogen-und-Pfeil Kurve?). It's probably best to wait for WikiProject Mathematics to weigh in, though I'm not sure there's much hope of expanding this beyond a dicdef. Deor (talk) 19:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Delete unless sources for this term can be turned up. The WikiProject Mathematics discussion doesn't seem very promising. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete as not notable. The article provides no sources to establish notability, and apparently nobody on WPM has ever heard of it before, either. The citation provided by Deor above isn't too helpful here, as it discusses only the specific curve x^y = y^x. I'm not convinced that he studied the other curves discussed in the article. Even if he did, I'm also not convinced he gave them the name "bow and arrow curve". Ozob (talk) 00:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per WP:NEO. It's hard to prove that the claims concerning discovery are false, but we can say that there is no verification that Euler assigned this name, or that the name is well known (it is not). Johnuniq (talk) 00:59, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Delete unless someone comes up with some sources. I wouldn't call it a "hoax" exactly - the given equation does describe a graph resembling a bow-and-arrow - but if we can't find any sources, then this isn't a topic for an encyclopedia article. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - Google is almost useless for this sort of search. -GTBacchus^(talk) 02:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Euler wrote a lot of stuff in Latin. How do you say "bow and arrow" in Latin? That should be included in a Google search. Michael Hardy (talk) 04:39, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Rather difficult, since in geometry the Latin word for a bow (arcus) is used to mean simply "arc," and the word for an arrow (sagitta) is used to refer to a segment joining the midpoint of an arc to the midpoint of the chord that subtends it. Therefore, one gets many irrelevant hits. (And since Euler used the words in these senses, I doubt that he would also have used them metaphorically in naming the sort of curve described here—too potentially confusing.) Deor (talk) 11:18, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

...and what's Latin for "archery"? Could that have some bearing here? Michael Hardy (talk) 15:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Archery" = "ars sagittandi = "art of the archer"

"Archer" = "Arcitenens" = "Bow holder"

"Archer" = "Sagittarius"

I don't think those help, but there they are. -GTBacchus^(talk) 19:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Here is one occurrence of the word sagittarius in a book by Leonhard Euler. Another is on page 278. Sagitta gets a couple of hits but they don't seem to shed light on this discussion. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:58, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. —Ladyof Shalott 04:52, 7 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Bow-and-arrow curve", verbatim, is found in three books found via google books. But it's on a different topic. Michael Hardy (talk) 21:00, 11 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Delete UNLESS" is a recurring phrase above. For the time being I'll say delete but allow re-creation if it can be established that Euler used the term. The mere fact that it was used by the most famous person who lived in the 18th century might be sufficient grounds for notability, but we don't yet know that it's a fact. Michael Hardy (talk) 18:08, 13 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.